Menendez Murders Continues to Fascinate

The Menendez brothers' shotgun slayings of their parents nearly 30 years ago continues to captivate today. Robert Kovacik reports for the NBC4 News on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017.

(Published Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017)

The mansion on a tree-lined street in Beverly Hills still stands. And still locked away are the two brothers who murdered their parents, then called 911.

"They thought they could get away with murder," said Detective Les Zoeller, of the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Lyle Menendez, now 49, is incarcerated near Sacramento. His 46-year-old brother Erik is 500 miles away in a San Diego prison. They are convicted murderers with no chance of parole.

Twenty-eight years later the fascination and the controversy with the case continues.

Robert Rand, the author of The Menendez Murders, said Jose and Kitty Menendez worked hard and having the perfect facade for the family, but behind the gates of that mansion it was a completely different story.

"It was unspeakable what I was feeling growing up in that house and it all just poured over that weekend when I realized that this was happening to my brother for so long," Lyle Menendez said in an interview from behind bars. "My mother knew what happened to me and she made a series of choices -- choosing her husband over her children."

For six months, millions of viewers watched, riveted by media coverage.

The tearful testimony of Lyle Menendez became the defining moment of the trial, as he recounted in detail being molested by his father. The defense was anchored on claims of sexual and psychological abuse.

"It's is a big fairy tale," Zoeller said. "I mean, they murdered the best witnesses that we have of whether this took place or not."

Lyle said he threatened to go to the police and reveal that Jose Menendez was still molesting his brother Erik and Jose Menendez said "I'm never going to let that happen," Rand said. "They were afraid they were going to be killed."

In the same month the devastating and deadly Northridge earthquake left much of LA in ruins; both juries dead-locked.

No cameras were allowed for the retrial two years later. By that time America was glued to the "trial of the century."